


only in eureka

by siojo



Series: Eureka Au [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mentioned Murder, Pre-Slash, eureka au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 06:36:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15880548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siojo/pseuds/siojo
Summary: Ace is back in Eureka to run Global, that means finally talking to his brothers again after years, is it any doubt that he's going to choose the one that's more forgiving? Marco would really like it if Eureka's geniuses could keep their crazy away for at least a full day, they have to let the director sign his paperwork first or he'll run away, or at least Marco would in his place.





	only in eureka

Ace leans back in his chair and stares at the ceiling as his computer scans itself with the program he had cobbled together to check for bugs, having already finished sweeping his office. He relaxes when it finished, quarantining the two bugs that that were found for Ace to look over later. 

 

“Sir, you have a meeting with the head of Quantum Physics in an hour,” Coby stutters and Ace doesn’t know if that’s because Ace has a Nobel now, which is still an honor even in a town like this, or if he doesn’t recognize Ace because he isn’t wearing his glasses. “You wanted to meet Dr. Monkey in his office, correct?”

 

“Please, I’m going to head down now, please take messages from anyone trying to contact me and arrange for lunch for us both from Moby?” Ace asks standing up and pulling on his suit jacket. “I should be back up here by noon.”

 

“Us both?” Coby repeats slowly.

 

“Put it on my tab,” Ace agrees smoothing his shirt and debating buttoning the jacket. He has to look nice in this position, even if he just wants to wear his jeans and one of his old college shirts, things he doesn’t have to worry about getting dirty. “And offer extra if they can make sure it stays hot. I should be less than an hour.”

 

“I will,” Coby says brightly, grinning. “Have a good time in the labs, sir.”

 

Ace smiles, feeling shaky, as he makes his way to the elevator. The last time he had been in Eureka, he had just been cleared of a murder charge and his brothers were telling him that it would be fine, like half the town hadn’t turned on him the minute he had come under suspicion. Luffy hadn’t talked to him since he had pulled out of the driveway, mad at Ace for leaving.

 

The lab, the same one that Luffy’s had since he was invited to join Global, smells like burning rubber and french fries. The way that it always has.

 

“Zoro! Where’s the math?” Luffy demands frowning at his computer screen. “I thought you said you had the math to backup the event that you theorized would occur if we upped the power.”

 

Zoro blinks slowly at Luffy, something small and blue sticking to his cheek, “Luffy, I haven’t slept in four days, I don’t know where my swords are.”

 

“You upgraded them to light sabers two months ago, check your waist,” Luffy states tapping one of the touch screen and tilting his head to the side as he studies whatever it is that he’s seeing. “What-,” he stops and frowns harder. “Did you let Usopp touch this recently?”

 

“No, but I think that he came through to fix up that sensor that Fanky was too busy to look at,” Zoro yawns, scrubbing his face tiredly. “Where is our coffee machine? Did you scavenge it for parts again?”

 

“Your order for a new one hasn’t cleared yet,” Ace says getting their attention. “It’s come to the accounting department’s attention that you go through four a month and they’re trying to find out why before they authorize funds for more.”

 

It’s quiet and Ace can feel the nerves in his stomach twisting as the silence lingers on, as they stare at him.

 

“Ace?” Luffy asks, his eyes going wide, taking a step away from his computer screen. “You’re?”

 

“They offered to make me the director,” Ace says, because he remembers how he left, remembers the looks that people shot him and the way they treated his brothers because of it. That had been one of the reason he had left, one of the many reasons. “How are you?”

 

Ace stumbles as Luffy slams into him, almost knocking him off of his feet, “You’re back!”

 

“I’m back,” Ace agrees patting him on the back and nodding at Zoro. “I hope that you’ve been having fun trying to establish whatever you’re working on currently.”

 

“Luffy’s sure that there’s something to do with black holes and we’ve been branching out,” Zoro yawns. “And he finally helped me finish my lightsaber project, so I suppose we’re both working on getting more information on astrophysics.”

 

“You could have just asked one of the men we have in the astrophysics department, couldn’t you?” Ace asks trying to convince Luffy to release him. “It’s probably simpler to just ask, wouldn’t it?”

 

“Luffy got into a fist fight with Dr. Croc just after you left and Luffy can’t get any information from them if he wanted to. Even with Dr. Nico flirting her way into the offices and stealing what she thinks might be of help.”

 

Ace shakes his head, “I can probably order him to give you the information that you want. Unless, you are both set on learning a whole new field of science.”

 

“You learned more,” Luffy pouts at him. “Gramps said you got a compter degree or two and then dabbled in chemical engineering because you needed it for a project and couldn’t find a good person to use as a resource.”

 

“Well, I always did prefer my own work over someone else’s,” Ace says brightly, it doesn’t feel forced, but he’s worried that maybe Luffy would realize that it was. “How are you?”

 

“I missed you,” Luffy mutters, hiding his face before stepping back and grinning, “I’m good! Did you hear Gramps finally retired? The new sheriff is real nice!”

 

“Oh,” he lets Luffy shift the conversation, because it’s not fair to force him to talk when Ace is the one who left. “I heard about gramps and Bay brought the sheriff to my office to meet me, do you like him?”

 

“Yeah, he’s good,” Luffy agrees bouncing back to his screen and talking excitedly about his project. He was always the happiest when he had work to do, when there was something exciting to study and discover.

 

“He helped Luffy out of being charged in the leak,” Zoro says softly, leaning back in his chair with his eyes half lidded. He shifts for a moment, looking disgruntled until he taps all three of the lightsabers on his waist. “Him, me, Trafalgar, and Robin were all implicated by Doflamingo and we were lucky that Marco kept it quiet until he cleared us. We even found out what happened to Rocinante.”

 

Ace flinches, he doesn’t mean to but he can’t help it, “Oh?”

 

“He figured out what his brother had done and was going to report him through Bay. Doflamingo stalked him through Global and cornered him in your labs, that’s why he was found there. Trafalgar's been particularly vicious with that knowledge.”

 

“Law’s always vicious.”

 

“Yeah, but you were working with him. Were in the same grade in school too, if anyone was going to know you, it would be him. Since you’re a fucking loner with no friends outside of level 5.”

 

“That’s probably true. Last I heard they were all unable to talk about their research,” Ace tilts his head and watches Luffy gesture about something that Ace doesn’t know. It sounds like his own work and Ace hasn’t been able to catch up on all of Luffy’s reports just yet. “How are they treating Luffy?”

 

“Most of them shut the fuck up when Garp proved you were innocent, even if he couldn’t get a lead on who had done all of this. When Newgate got both Doflamingo and the camera feed from that night, we had a number of people apologizing to Luffy for ever suspecting you,” he snorts. “Now what they say to your face is something else entirely.”

 

“I’ve spent the last five years dealing with politics, I think I might be okay.”

* * *

 

“What did you do this time?” Marco demands pulling up at Shanks’ garage and slamming the door to his jeep. “I thought that you promised Benn that you would actually behave yourself until we had the new director settled in?”

 

Shanks blinks at him slowly the magnification glasses making them bigger, screwdriver in his mouth and his prosthetic arm on the table in pieces. There’s a long moment where Marco regrets allowing himself to be manhandled into this position as they stare at each other, before Shanks takes the screwdriver out of his mouth. 

 

“It wasn’t me this time.”

 

Marco raises an eyebrow, “No?”

 

“Nah, I was behaving. But I figured this was something you needed to take care of and who the fuck knows the new director’s way of handling things. No one even knows who it is yet,” Shanks says glancing back down at his arm. “Unless you want to tell me?”

 

“Bay knew him, said he was Dr. Ace D Portgas?” Marco offers because as much as he might dislike Shanks on most days, he is one of the few that will use words that Marco understands when some of the scientists start talking, or breaks concepts down for him. “Apparently he’s been here before?”

 

“Huh, I didn’t think you could get that kid back here unless something happened to one of his brothers,” Shanks says finally looking up and focusing on Marco. “He’s a good kid, knew his parents, for all that means nothing about Ace himself, but he’s smart and he’s practical. And he’s probably got more degrees than you can count, because he gets bored and starts learning things until he tests out of everything in a college. You also cleared his name completely when you got Doflamingo.”

 

Marco blinks, “Alright. He seemed more trustworthy than the flamingo at least, which is always a plus. Now, why did you have Koala call me?”

 

“Something took out my arm,” Shanks scowls down at it. “I’ve protected it from everything but EMPs, because I’m still trying to configure the shielding to a smaller size, but that’s not important,” he adds when Marco raises an eyebrow. “There’s someone walking around with an EMP, it took out my arm and half of the Moby.”

 

“Koala didn’t mention this.”

 

“She might not know yet. If the bursts are taking out power, those affected might not be able to call for help. And I’m useless without this fucking arm,” Shanks appears to be talking to the arm this time. “When the fuck did this get stripped, you little fuck? Huh, when?”

 

“Shanks, please focus for one more minute,” Marco asks, watching him. “You said you were at Moby?”

 

Shanks nods to a satellite picture of the area around the Moby, a chunk of it circled in florescent pink marker, “I marked it. I need this up and running now, so if you need help, ask Benn. I have a car to fix, damn it and what the hell happened to your power source? I invented that shit.”

 

“Thank you, Shanks,” Marco says taking the picture and heading back to his jeep. He really did wonder sometimes what Shanks had done before becoming a mechanic when he said things like that. “Koala, do you copy?”

 

“Hey bossman, I was just about to call you. We’ve got roving blackouts,” Koala says, sounding more professional than Marco had heard her since he arrived. Not that he blamed her, she had been expected to be promoted to sheriff when Garp retired, not get looked over for an FBI agent. “I’m marking them on a map at the station.”

 

“Shanks says it’s EMP, it took out his arm,” Marco says throwing the picture into the passenger's seat and pulling out faster than he had intended. “Do we have an expert in that?”

 

Koala hisses through her teeth, “We do, I’ll have them come to the station and have repair efforts refocused. We’ll have to replace things if it’s an EMP. See you at the station, Sheriff.”

 

“I’ll be there in four minutes.”

 

Marco doesn’t turn on his siren, but he push the edges of the speed limit, hurrying as best he can to reach the station and raising an eyebrow as he catches sight of the line of people coming out the office door. He enters easily enough to find Koala trying to calm a woman worried about a minor, authorized, experiment on snakes that she’s running and how they don’t have a heat source now.

 

“We’re working on this a quickly as we can, Dr. Boa. I am sorry that it’s ruined today’s work, but we’re currently trying to track down who and what might be causing this.”

 

Marco pauses, spotting Ace standing by the map and scanning it, “Sir?”

 

“Just Ace, sheriff,” Ace corrects with an easy smile. “Koala requested an expert and while I’m not that exactly, I’ve done some work with EMPs myself, I hope that you don’t mind me trying to help you with this?”

 

“Aren’t you busy?” Marco asks slowly, because that smile is still just as bright as it had been in his office. “I don’t want to keep you from your work.”

 

Ace shakes his head, “I’m making good progress on it, I have time to help, besides,” he turns back to the map and Marco glances at it himself. “I would love to see your work.”

 

“Mine?”

 

“Well,” Marco wonders if he imagines the look that Ace gives him, the little glance before returning to the map. “I did say that I like numbers, I always did like seeing someone good with them at work too.”


End file.
